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Christmas knitting, its one of those knitting things … where knitters overcommit themselves to make items for someone who doesn’t appreciate the time and effort that went into making that item. I’m not into the cult of Christmas knitting, I do make handmade items for family, however they are people who have idea of what they are getting and what it’s value is. Also, often they are giving me back a handmade items so its all good!

Since getting a Cricket Rigid Heddle Loom I’ve mostly escaped the desire to knit last minute gifts for people, I can just weave them a scarf. When faced with my mostly unused KnitPicks Palette stash and the desire to make gifts for people, I started making these herringbone scarves, and this is another one. This one however is for my Grannie, who has always been a fan of Blue Willow patterned china.

So here it is one of the few handmade Christmas gifts that didn’t take much in the way of time or energy and make a very nice gift.

Second time’s a charm. After a poorly warping my first scarf, I had some warp threads shred which resulted in a very short scarf. This time everything went right and I have a full sized scarf ready for Christmas gift giving.

I enjoy this sort of weaving, simple but creating a neat result. Having only two shuttles I’m sorta limited on my plaid options and I haven’t had the nerve to try out too many lace patterns, in part because I don’t have any pick-up sticks.

– Details –

Project Name: Second Try Houndstooth

Draft: Grab and Go Bag by Liz Gipson in Weaving Made Easy

Recipient: Probably Grampa

Yarn: Knitpicks Palette in Salsa Heather and Bittersweet

Modifications: None

New Skills: Actually not getting my warp threads shredded by using paper as warp separator.

Feedback:

Yarn: Palette has such great colors (they recently went up to 150 shades) but I don’t enjoy knitting stranded colorwork so this a great way to use it. It is a bit rough but it is perfect for weaving.

Draft: So easy and yet creates such a complex finished project.

Re-Weave?: Yep, I already have another one warped up and another 5 or so of color sets to go.

Buying yarn is a fun thing, you find a pattern you think you are going to love, you invest in the yarn and then it sits in your stash because either the pattern doesn’t work for you or you don’t really use knit bags or like wearing colorwork mittens.

That is how I ended up with a far too large stash of KnitPicks Palette. It is amazing yarn for colorwork, however I don’t enjoy colorwork, I spend too much emotional energy making sure my gauge isn’t too tight or stressing over the fact that I use needles several millimeters larger than called for to make it work.

I was able to destash quite a bit of it to fellow Guild members back in February, however I still held onto some of it for some odd reason and now find myself drowning in yarn I’m not interested in using and not valuable enough to go to the effort to destash through Ravelry.

However, after washing this scarf, I think the yarn has found its calling, it is soft and drapey and the colors are just amazing. I think colorwork is far more fun when I don’t have to worry about gauge and floats.

That’s not to say this scarf was without its challenges. Because of the warp seperator I’ve been using on my loom I managed to shred one of my warp threads, way back at the back apron beam, and so I decided to cut the scarf off the loom early and sacrifice the rest of the warp to either future striped scarf or for the compost bin. I should have narrowed the scarf and retied it to the front beam, but I was fairly discouraged and started cutting the warp off the back beam before I had really thought it through. Oh well, live and learn.

Also, let me know how you like these pictures. I have been watching the Craftsy class Shoot It on product photography by Caro Sheridan of Split Yarn so I have been trying out her techniques. Tomorrow’s FO post has my old photos, but the one on Friday has new pictures, and I’m pretty proud of those.

Two color weaving: This was my first time using two shuttles at the same time. I’m still not sure I understand how to make my two selveges look the same, but I was really getting into the houndstooth flow when my warp snapped/shredded.

Alternate warp stripes: To warp the houndstooth pattern I started each of my colors at opposite ends and direct warped alternate slots in both directions. This worked wonderfully, and I ended up not having to cut too many ends and my warp didn’t get funny from sliding off the apron rod from having too much tension on one side but not the other.

Feedback:

Yarn: It’s Palette, so the colors were amazing but because of my warp separator I had my one edge warp thread shred. I should have been smarter when warping and now that I’m on my second scarf like this I haven’t warped too close to the edge and used paper rather than plastic to separate my warp.

Draft: Easy and straight forward, but I LOVE the effect. I see many, many, many herringbone scarves and yardage in my future.

Re-Weave?: Totally, I already have my next one on the loom and a few inches into weave (although my currently garter mania and the Tour de Fleece are keeping me from really getting much weaving done).

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About me

Hi, I'm Christina, better known as the Bean behind Green Bean's String Factory. My factory/studio/office/bedroom is where I card, spin, knit, crochet and weave. I'm also in the process of learning how to quilt.